


Breath

by Mssilverwoods



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, IVF Arc (X-Files)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:22:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24644767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mssilverwoods/pseuds/Mssilverwoods
Summary: Thoughts on a different life and on carrying a bag of grief together.Trigger for IVF related content
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 10
Kudos: 30





	Breath

Breath. She hasn’t moved from the couch. If she sits here then maybe, just maybe it won’t be true. The phone call never happened and she’s not really here alone. 

Not alone in her apartment, the tap dripping over the sink and the afternoon sun sprinkling light onto the dust mites, which are still dancing off the cushion which she grabbed as the voice told her the news and her legs gave way. They weren’t meant to ring until 5, when Mulder was with her. Was she that forgetful? 

Breath. She focuses on the photos on the side table, all she sees is Bill and Tara, their growing family. She supposes Charlie has children. She can hear Bill saying that Mulder couldn’t even shoot decent even though he's not infertile, in a callous drawl and she’s already angry at a conversation she’ll never have. She’ll never tell Bill that they were going through IVF. She tries to look at something else but all she can do is worry how she’ll cope at Thanksgiving. Oh God, maybe Mulder will find someone else at the Thanksgiving party? 

Breath. Today wasn’t meant to be like this. 

She should have been surprising Mulder by going to a restaurant. They’d be tentatively making plans for the first pregnant FBI Agent on the X Files. He’d hold her hand and be stupidly proud of them. Oh she longs to see that smile on his face. They’ll gently bicker about what to do. What will they tell everyone? She’ll roll an eye when he says she’s the mother of his child, and then probably cry and agree anyway. Will they explain their relationship, that he’s the father. The waiter will ask if they’re celebrating. Yes, yes - with a blush - she is indeed in love this man and Mulder will be unable to resist sharing their news even though it’s too early. She’ll walk with him in the park at lunchtime tomorrow and he’ll smooth his hand over her belly, as he will for nine months, and she’ll feel so proud to have him there. In a few weeks they’ll tell her mom. At the FBI Thanksgiving party she'll wear a dress over her bump and dance with Mulder until she's tired, claiming him in front of the secretarial pool and the many who dreamt of him in their bed. They’ll step into a new life. Move to a house, marry in Spring, argue over a dinner service, get a dog and her body will give birth and….

Her body. This barren thing that has been changing in the past months. She’s given many injections in her life but never to herself. Never this many and her burning stomach is littered with little pin pricks and bruises At least she knows where her veins are, as any medical doctor may do. God help the women who do this with no experience. She’s one of many, seventy-six percent, for whom IVF fails. This fact, brings scant comfort. Her body that’s been a hormonal mess of tears, this body that has retained water like a dammed lake. Now her brain is failing her too. There’s no comfort in these thoughts. In the grief for a child that never was.

Breath. If she sits here a moment longer it won’t be true. She stares at the coffee table, at the pile of magazines that just yesterday were interesting. They remind merely of a day when she had hope. If she just stays right here, it won’t hurt so much.

She’s dreading seeing pregnant colleagues, not knowing what to say or do when they share their news. Fertile, womanly and wanted. Everything she can't feel. 

Breath. She stares at the floor, at the knots in the wood and breaths. Don’t move and it won’t be true.

She’s terrified that someone will speak platitudes. Try to fix her with scenarios which she too had thought were okay to offer, before she became a statistic. ‘Just adopt’. ‘Relax’. Worse they might glance at Mulder with a saucy wink, tell him to ‘have fun trying’. Dragging him down with her when he deserves more. He needs a woman who can make him a father. What will she do when he leaves? What paternal emotions has this intimate plan unleashed in the man she wanted to live a life with.

Breath. There’s a sound at the door. If she could speak, crack open her parched mouth and say words, she’d ask Mulder not to knock, to run away. She can’t move even if she knows she must. If she doesn’t move, it won’t be true.

The door swings quietly open and shuts. Of course he doesn't knock, he as good as lives here now. She hears the scratch of his jeans, the warmth of him as he sits beside her, the couch only barely shifting her. The answer is plain as day, but he hasn't run away. In her heart, she knows he won't. It's why she asked him. 

When his warm hands fall onto her neck and shoulders, and he gathers her up, to gently roll her into his protection, she feels the terror at movement, breaking a spell. It exercises itself as a torrent of tears. She rages incoherently about how her stomach hurts, her whole dammed body aches, how she will never ever stop crying, how ugly she feels, all the imaginary pregnancies of colleagues they barely know, insults she’s yet to hear, stupid Bill and the mystery fertile goddess who will steal him away from her. He listens to every word, even the ones that don’t make sense, those eyes sparkling with his own bag of grief, a weight that they will share in time.

If she doesn’t move it won’t be true, but it is and so she moves. And he catches her when she does.

**Author's Note:**

> I am one of the seventy six percent (UK stat). I wrote this a while ago and it’s very much from my experiences. I recall sitting after the phone call, alone. There wasn’t a support system but a lot of people with platitudes that really hurt. So I suppose this is a bit of me and maybe educational for those who've never experienced IVF or it's failure. I wanted to get over how much it robs someone of the identity, and womanlyness (is that even a word!) 
> 
> I hadn’t been through IVF when this arch was explored, I rewatched it during several cycles. I think it was (maybe still is) the only program that mentioned infertility and it's a rare reference point in popular culture. Nobody seems to do IVF in TV land, even rarer, IVF failure. Of course it isn’t a medical series but the touches like seeing Scully playing with a child in a later ep, and Mulder’s reaction to that are beautifully acted (the way David Duchovny plays Mulder's reaction to this so tender and heartbreaking). 
> 
> I felt that Mulder’s words ‘never give up on a miracle’ are about as much as one could say in his position and balance that fine line. You don’t want the person you want to have a child with suggest solutions (not that adoption is, it's an alternative) and you don’t want them to give up with you, hence, the idea of catching someone. It is very sad that Mulder’s grief wasn’t explored in this storyline, only vaguely at the last season when the dubious storyline of William’s parentage was revealed. Men can be childless too.
> 
> Sorry, it's a bit grim but life is but it's good to write this.


End file.
